


Connect, Protect, Respect

by Lexigent



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-14
Updated: 2015-06-14
Packaged: 2018-04-04 10:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4134537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexigent/pseuds/Lexigent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Valerie came to be a police officer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connect, Protect, Respect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marie_L](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/gifts).



Valerie's older brother died before they ever met, but he's probably the biggest presence in her life. Sometimes, it's as though all she ever does is to replace what he could have been. 

"He wasn't strong enough," her parents tell her, and a few years later, they tell her that when they were about to have her, there was a fairly new technology that made sure she would be stronger and smarter and that they did it to her because they wanted her to have a better chance at life than her brother did. 

They never gave her a photo of him and they don't keep any around, but Valerie is smart enough to break through encryptions on personal computers. He was only four when he died so she can't judge how much he does or doesn't look like her, but she likes having it around for reasons she can't quite put a name to. 

Another drawback of engineering smart kids is that no one really knows how to interact with them. Valerie's school was the only Chrome school in the city when her parents decided to have their second child designed rather than it being another natural - a word that carries the echo of "disaster" after it every time someone uses it. 

Valerie knows her parents meant well, but she does wish sometimes that she had a little more freedom. Everyone she goes to school with wants to go into finance, or business, or maybe science if they're a bit nerdy or their parents are in tech. Valerie thinks people, society, the ways people behave, are much more interesting. When she's fifteen, there's a bit of a fight over her choice of subjects, but in the end they let her take Psych as long as she also takes some business classes. 

"If your grades drop, Psych is the first to go," her dad says and she just nods, every inch the dutiful daughter. She feels sometimes that if she fails, they'll consider her a faulty product and return her to the shop. She looks at the photo of her brother - Tom - that she's saved on her phone and reminds herself that that's not what it's like. 

The last year before she graduates, her school starts accepting naturals. There are none in her year or the couple years below - no one would transfer when graduation is only a year or two away - but some are accepted in the lower grades. In her speech at the start of the new year, the principal makes a big thing out of how this means that naturals have progressed, but all that Valerie can think is that it just means that the school rules have relaxed and Chromes have been pushed to not see themselves as some kind of master race. 

She graduates with flying colours after the loneliest three years of her life. Having spent every free minute studying, she'd expected no less, but still there is a voice inside her that is not satisfied, that tells her that she should have, could have, done better. How exactly you do better than taking three more courses than required and getting straight As in every single one isn't precisely clear to her, but the voice keeps insisting. 

She's been clear about wanting to take Psychology at university and shows her parents the business psych classes on the syllabus to advance her argument. 

"We were kinda hoping you'd go into business school," her dad says, "but I guess the technology was still experimental." 

"You didn't genetically-engineer my free will away," she wants to say, but thinks better of it. They still cry when they drop her off at the dorm, and she supposes it will all work out eventually. Though in truth, as long as they keep sending her a check every month, she doesn't especially care. 

*** 

She's handed in her thesis and is having a coffee in celebration with Nicole, who took Behavioral with her. 

"So what's next on your list now, Miss Overachiever?" 

It's a good-natured dig, but Valerie still winces inwardly. 

"I'll go be a business psychologist somewhere, I guess." 

Nicole laughs. "You guess? Everywhere you've interned has given you a glowing reference. I'm surprised you're not being heaadhunted already." 

"Well." Valerie knows Nicole would jump at the chance to reply to any of the letters and emails Valerie has received from top-drawer companies in the last six months, so she keeps quiet about them. Nicole cocks her head. 

"I just..." Valerie shrugs. "I mean, I did all this research into how people behave. About altruism versus egotism, and which behavior is more likely to ensure survival, and how it all relates to society today - and I'll use it to tell some CEO how to make more money?" 

Nicole inhales sharply. "It'll pay the bills," she says. 

"Huh." Valerie gives a small nod. "I guess I just feel - how can we know all this stuff and not change society?" 

"First we take Manhattan, eh?" 

"Huh?" 

"It's from a song. It's this tune my mom used to play, singer's called Leonard Cohen. Check it out some time." 

Valerie takes out her phone and searches her music app, stars it and puts the phone back in her pocket. "Thanks, I will." 

Back in her dorm room, fifty years of boredom doesn't sound very enticing. Trying to break the system from within, though? Now there's an idea.  
*** 

"Ms Stahl, could you tell me how a first=rate organizational psychologist came to consider a career change as radical as this?" 

The red-haired woman opposite Valerie had steel in her eyes and her voice. Her mouth had a hard set and her face was lined with traces of too many late nights: a woman shaped by the work she did to protect the city every day. 

"I thought this would be a better use for my abilities than my previous role." 

"By abilities, do you mean your genetics?" 

"Partly, yes. I'm less likely to be off sick than others. But mostly, I was talking about my previous training in behavioral psychology and my interest in societal changes. My links to the Chrome community could be a useful asset to the department as well." 

"You out to protect your own?" 

"I would like to do my part to protect everyone in this city, Lieutenant." Valerie inhaled. The woman opposite her was hard to read but Valerie thought she might finally have hacked it. 

"Chromes account for a lot of the innovations in the last five years, but they are also responsible for a high rate of white-collar crime, and they're often too smart to get caught. This contributes to social inequalities, leading to deprivation, loss of jobs and homes, and raises the city's crime profile across the board." 

The Lieutenant nodded and her lips twitched into the suggestion of a smile. 

"Thanks you, Ms Stahl. That will be all." 

Valerie got the call that night and went to bed feeling like, for the first time in her life, she had made a decision, and that it had been the correct one. She pulled out her phone to look at Tom's picture and smiled. 

"Wish you could see me now, little bro," she said. "I bet you'd be so proud of me."


End file.
